Earth Day Trash Pickup

In honor of Earth Day on Monday, April 22nd, I’m encouraging you to get outside and pickup a few pieces of trash in your neighborhood. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve walked by a piece of trash (with or without our pups) and didn’t do anything about it. Recently, I decided that if I’m not going to do anything about it- then who is?! We need to take action.

Here are some interesting tid bits to get you pickin’ up trash left and right

One of the biggest sources of litter is cigarette buts. They are small but mighty in terms of adding toxins to soil and water

If an area is clean, people are less likely to litter

More than 9 billion tons of trash ends up in the oceans. Even if you don’t live near an ocean, wildlife still exists in your area and wind could take that trash farther than you think! Also, if trash is deposited near a small waterway, it will likely lead to an ocean eventually

Marine animals can mistake garbage for food, ingest it and die

It just freaking looks bad! Litter-ey areas can decrease property value or deter new businesses from coming to your neighborhood

Litter/trash on the street can be dangerous to animals. (Louie sometimes tries to go for old food packages and stinky old things left on the sidewalk in Chicago- disgusting!) Birds and other animals can mistake trash for food.

It could attract and breed rats (Chicagoans, you know that poster you’ve seen TARGET: RATS!!)

Every year millions of $$$ are spent cleaning up litter. What other good could this money do if we resolved this issue? (Yea YOUR taxpayer dollars are being spent cleaning up litter)

The more litter there is in an area, the more people will continue to do it

Broken glass litter can cause legitimate injury to people and animals

Littering can encourage the spread of pest species and diseases. The trash can provide breeding ground for diseases and pass it between animals that eat it